Ο Χάρι Πότερ και το κύπελλο της φωτιάς

A gift that looks like a compass but measures something else entirely.

It lay heavily in her hands, the crystal face gleaming, the golden body exquisitely machined. It was very like a clock, or a compass, for there were hands pointing to places around the dial, but instead of the hours or the points of the compass there were several little pictures, each of them painted with extraordinary precision, as if on ivory with the finest and slenderest sable brush. She turned the dial around to look at them all. There was an anchor; an hourglass surmounted by a skull; a chameleon, a bull, a beehive... Thirty-six altogether, and she couldn’t even guess what they meant.

Northern Lights · Philip Pullman

What it costs to be taken seriously by something that wants to kill you.

A young wolfhound must meet his first wolf someday, but if the wolf sees him as a puppy, if he acts the puppy, the wolf will surely kill him. The wolfhound must be a wolfhound in the wolf’s eyes even more than in his own, if he is to survive.

The Great Hunt · Robert Jordan

What summer break looks like when you're the reason the school exploded.

The last thing I wanted to do on my summer break was blow up another school.

The Battle of the Labyrinth · Rick Riordan